Mental causation and the paradoxes of explanation
Philosophical Studies 122 (3):243-77 (2005)
| Abstract | In this paper I will discuss Kims powerful explanatory exclusion argument against the causal efficacy of mental properties. Baker and Burge misconstrue Kims challenge if they understand it as being based on a purely metaphysical understanding of causation that has no grounding in an epistemological analysis of our successful scientific practices. As I will show, the emphasis on explanatory practices can only be effective in answering Kim if it is understood as being part of the dual-explanandum strategy. Furthermore, a fundamental problem of the contemporary debate about mental causation consists in the fact that all sides take very different examples to be paradigmatic for the relation between psychological and neurobiological explanations. Even if we should expect some alignment in the explanatory scope of neurobiology and psychology/folk-psychology, there is no reason to expect that all mental explanations are exempted by physical explanations, since they do not in general explain the same phenomena. | |||||||||
| Keywords | Causation Explanation Mental Metaphysics Property Psychology Baker, L Burge, T Kim, Jaegwon | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesDwayne Moore (2009). Explanatory Exclusion and Extensional Individuation. Acta Analytica 24 (3):211-222.
Jaegwon Kim (1990). Explanatory Exclusion and the Problem of Mental Causation. In Enrique Villanueva (ed.), Information, Semantics, and Epistemology. Blackwell.
Tyler Burge (1993). Mind-Body Causation and Explanatory Practice. In John Heil & Alfred R. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation. Oxford University Press.
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